1st Edition

Taha Husain's Education From Al Azhar to the Sorbonne

By Abdelrashid Mahmoudi Copyright 1998

    Taha Husein is rightly regarded as the father of modern Arabic literature and his work is widely used as introductory texts for students of the language. In this highly original book, Dr Mahmoudi describes Husein's cultural and intellectual journey through his education in Egypt and France. Husein's humanism and modernism can be traced from his time at the al Azhar through his time in the influential circle of Ahmad Lutfi al-Sayyid to his famous study mission to France, where he witnessed the twilight of positivism. Taha Husein's Education will add to our understanding of this great Egyptian author and the contexts that shaped and informed his thought.

    Chapter 1 Introduction; Chapter 2 A Passion for the World; Chapter 3 From Theology to Literature; Chapter 4 The Discovery of History; Chapter 5 The Early Writings; Chapter 6 Back to the French Sources; Chapter 7 The Twilight of Positivism; Chapter 8 Reconciliations; Chapter 9 Conclusion;

    Biography

    Abdelrashid Mahmoudi

    'An important and original contribution to our understaning, not only of Taha Husayn himself, but also of the intellectual climate in which he and his contemporaries studied and worked. It deserves to be widely read, not only by students of modern Arabic literature but by all those interested in the development of Arab cultural and intellectual trends in the first half of the twentieth century.' - Paul Starkey, British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies